


Forsaken

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, No Smut, Shrios, Thane Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7368181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Thane succumbs to brainwashing and attempts to kill Shepard, they both must find a way to live with the aftermath.</p><p>From a prompt on the KinkMeme:</p><p>I had a thought. What if the Hanar used brainwashing and the phrase they used for his total obedience was discovered.<br/>Cue femshep having to fight her lover, and finding he's a lot stronger and deadlier than she thought.<br/>After Thane is freed, he deals with the guilt and Femshep is there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The door opened behind Shepard and she nodded at the salarian Spectre standing beside it even as she looked at the entrant in surprise. Jondam kept his pistol aimed on the now clearly indoctrinated hanar threatening to destroy Kahje. She breathed out a sigh of relief. A single hanar wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, especially with the aid of Bau and Kasumi, but she hoped to end this without violence and Thane could certainly help with that. 

Still, his unexpected appearance struck her as odd. He’d been acting strangely since he’d returned from the hanar homeworld. She’d attributed that to aftereffects of the lung transplant he’d received while she had been locked up on Earth but this was odd even for him. It wasn’t like him to insert himself without her asking for him. He knew better than most what she was capable of. After all, he’d followed her through the Omega 4 relay and back. He couldn’t possibly doubt that she could protect his people’s planet. 

She felt a slight irritation at his clear statement of doubt and asked, “What are you doing here, Thane? I thought you were visiting Kolyat.” He didn’t answer and irritation shifted to unease. He hadn’t even looked at her. His eyes were on the hanar. That might not be odd as he tended to keep his target in his sights but the look in his dark eyes was disturbing. It was almost…worshipful. 

She shook the thought off and continued, “Look, Thane, I appreciate the backup and I know you know I’m not the biggest fan of the big—the hanar,” she corrected. He didn’t like it when she referred to them as ‘big, stupid jellyfish’ in the best of times and she couldn’t read him at all right now which sent a tremor down her spine. Thane was nothing if not expressive even when he was reserved. “That doesn’t mean I won’t do my absolute best to protect Kahje. Your people live there. I’m going to keep them safe.”

When he spoke, the question was familiar but it was clear that it was not her to whom he addressed the question. “Orders?”

The hanar’s voice was sadistically gleeful when it answered, “Kill the human.”

Shepard sighed and rolled her eyes at the floating jellyfish. Thane would never hurt her. Regardless of the look on his face or his loyalty to the gelatinous race for saving his people, she knew he loved her and would never lay a finger on her in anger. Thus, she was taken utterly by surprise when she felt his hands around her throat. Her barrier flared to life in an instinctive response and she used the move he himself had shown her to break his hold and roll away. 

From the corner of her eye, she saw Bau’s pistol shift to Thane and shouted, “No!” as Kasumi appeared and knocked the gun upward. It was enough of a distraction for Thane to move in again and she grunted in pain as his fist made contact with her solar plexus and his elbow slammed into her chin hard enough to cause her teeth to snap violently together. The tang of blood filled her mouth and she barely managed to dodge the blow that would crush her trachea and kill her instantly.

Shepard forced herself to shake off her confusion as she threw Thane back into a wall. “Stop the hanar,” she ordered Kasumi and the other Spectre. 

She was at a distinct disadvantage here. The look in his eyes told her that Thane wasn’t himself. She didn’t know what had happened to cause this but the only thing that she could think was that she now understood what he meant when he spoke of becoming disconnected. His body moved, his mind worked, but the light that made him the man she’d watched him become was gone. He wanted to kill her. She not only didn’t want to kill him, she was worried about injuring him and jeopardizing his transplant. He was pulling none of his blows while she was restricted to defensive movements. 

The breath exploded from her lungs as his warp field hit her and threatened to rip her into her component parts and leave her that way. She wished suddenly that she’d asked Liara to teach her how to create a stasis field. She rushed him, driving her shoulder into his solid abdomen and shoving him back into the window hard enough to break the glass. Her forearm planted itself across his throat as she grasped his wrists in her hand. The hyoid bone in his throat meant that he could still breathe but it remained an effective way of controlling his head and, therefore, his body. “Thane! Stand down! That’s an order!” she shouted.

He used her hold for leverage and drew his legs up to plant them against her chest and push. She flew back and felt the edge of a table dig itself into her spine. Not for the first time, she wished she’d never broken her habit of wearing armor around the Citadel. His clothing was armored. Hers was not. She caught his foot before it could make contact with and break her ribs and used it to twist him around and knock him to the floor. He rolled and she dove to the side to avoid his biotic throw. 

She growled in frustration as Kasumi, Bau, and the hanar fought behind them. She couldn’t warp Thane and her singularity was too damaging so she pulled him instead. “Listen to me, Thane!” she said as he struggled to release himself from her hold. “It’s me, Shepard. Siha. Stop this!”

His hand twisted and she felt the wave of dark energy push her back. It wasn’t powerful enough to injure but it was enough to break him loose. He landed lightly on his feet and spun, drawing his pistol. She drew her barrier around her as strong as she could make it given the waning power in her amp. He kept shredder rounds in his gun and if he managed to strip her barriers, she was done for. A single warp from him combined with a well-placed shot and he’d make himself a widower again. She couldn’t let that happen. Rather than dodge or roll, she did the last thing he would expect. She charged. It would have been far more impressive if she were a vanguard rather than a pure adept and could add biotic force behind it but she had the element of surprise on her side and his warp field barely grazed her. Her barriers flickered but held. 

Shepard and Thane engaged in a brief but vicious struggle for control of his weapon. She didn’t have his strength or his reach and had to keep her focus divided because she knew how lethal even one of his hands could be but she fought valiantly anyway. She was no longer fighting for her own safety but for his sanity as well. If he were to seriously hurt her or, gods forbid, kill her then he would be lost forever. She continued trying to reason with him even as they fought but her words didn’t penetrate. “Thane, please. It’s me, Thane. It’s Shepard. Stop fighting me. I can’t let you do this. Listen to me, Thane, it’s Siha, your Siha.”

His fist connected with her face but she threw her head to the side quickly enough to prevent the splintered nasal bones from spearing up into her sinus cavity. The hot rush of blood from her nose gushed over her lips to mingle with the blood in her mouth and she spat as she struggled to breathe without inhaling it. She realized as his hand closed around her throat and the barrel of his pistol connected with her temple that she had lost. Thane always had been better than she was even when he was sick and dying. Now that he was healthy, he had a strength she couldn’t have anticipated. The only way that she could survive this now would be to send a shockwave through the palm she had pressed against his chest and stop his heart. She couldn’t do it.

“I love you, Thane,” she whispered. “Meet you across the sea.”

She closed her eyes in anticipation of the bullet that was about to tear through her skull and several things happened at once. Kasumi shouted a warning as Jondam fired his pistol and Thane whispered, “Siha?” and the world spun on its axis and then exploded around them.

The silence that fell was jarring and her first thought was that she couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating again over Alchera. She panicked and thrashed violently in an attempt to bring her hands around in what she knew would be a fruitless effort to stop the air that was leaking out of her busted seals. Thane’s voice came as a shock. “Siha! Be still! I will not hurt you.”

She felt the vibration of his words in her chest and realized that the weight pinning her down was his. Her eyes fluttered open and she took in the sight of the salarian Spectre staring dazedly down at Kasumi’s slumped form. The thief moaned and flickered out of sight. She turned her head and looked up into the depths of her lover’s eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw him in them. “Thane,” she said in a wavering voice. “You’re back. What the hell just happened?”

His brow ridges furrowed and his eyes roved her face. He jumped up off of her and bowed his head. “I hurt you,” he said miserably.

She struggled to her feet, noting the various aches and pains she now felt. She’d bear a rainbow of colors to rival Feron in the morning. “It wasn’t you,” she said reasonably. “What happened?”

“I hurt you,” he repeated. When she went to him, his hand caught her wrist and moved it away as he’d done the night he’d come to her cabin before the Omega 4 relay. The motion made her heart clench and anxiety pool in her belly. 

“Thane?” she asked uncertainly.

“I must go,” he said tersely. She tried to stop him, but he dodged her grasp and walked swiftly from the room.

“I’ll find you in a few minutes, Jondam,” she said as they followed her husband out. She stopped in the doorway and huffed out a breath. He was nowhere to be seen. It was just like him to pull one of his disappearing acts and vanish into thin air. It wasn’t like him to do so in order to escape her. She knew that there was no way that she would find him until he chose to be found and so she turned back into the room.

“You can show yourself now,” she told Kasumi. 

“What the hell just happened here, Shep?” the little thief said, flickering into view once more. “That didn’t look like your typical lovers’ quarrel.”

Shepard used the cloth Kasumi handed her to wipe the blood from her face before pressing it against her battered nose. “I don’t know,” she answered thickly. “He’s never done anything like that before. Kasumi, you know Thane. That wasn’t him.”

“No,” Kasumi agreed. “It wasn’t. I wonder…”

“What?” Shepard asked. 

“One of the books I have is about the hanar and their training of the drell they take in under the Compact,” Kasumi said. “There’s an old practice that is no longer widely used among them that could explain his behavior.”

“Spit it out, Kasumi,” she said. “What is it?”

“Brainwashing,” Kasumi answered. “The hanar used to brainwash the drell. They would basically implant them with a code word that would trigger instant disconnection and obedience. It fell out of practice when control chips became widely available. However, he was on Kahje recently and he was their best assassin once. I can’t imagine they were too happy to lose him. A control chip would be too obvious and easy to remove. A code word, on the other hand, can’t be detected on a brain scan and doesn’t leave a scar. They could have brainwashed him while he was sedated and suggestible from his surgery or, later, when his spirit disconnected due to the trauma to his body.”

“How do you know all of this?” she asked. “He only told me about it because of Kolyat.”

Kasumi gave her a sly smile and said, “Come now, Shep, haven’t you figured out by now that I’m everywhere?”

“You’re worse than EDI,” Shepard muttered. “So how do we undo this brainwashing if that’s what it is?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go to her for that,” Kasumi said. 

Shepard nodded. “Come with us, Kasumi. We could use your help.”

Kasumi, of course, refused but Shepard was at least able to talk her into joining the Crucible project. She hated saying goodbye to her friend but she had more pressing matters on her mind. She sent a message to Kolyat asking him to contact her and then another to EDI and Liara as she made her way back to the ship. She needed to get Chakwas to patch her up and then she needed to find Thane and fix this. 

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, please come back to the ship. We can talk about this. It wasn’t your fault and I’m fine. I’m more worried about you right now.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** TANNOR NUARA  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, please come back to the ship. We can talk about this. It wasn’t your fault and I’m fine. I’m more worried about you right now.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, it’s been a full day. This is ridiculous. Answer me.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE ******

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, I haven’t seen you in two days and no one knows where you are. Please answer me.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, the Normandy is taking off at 1800 hours with or without you on board. Return to the ship now. That’s an order.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

Six hours before the ship was scheduled to leave, Garrus and EDI accompanied her around the station in search of him. It was too large to search in just a matter of hours and they were forced to concede defeat. She held out departure for as long as she could and ignored the pitying looks from Joker and the crew as she gave the order to take off. Their business on Tuchanka could wait no longer. 


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard’s heart was heavy both with Thane’s absence and Grunt’s injury. She hadn’t heard from her mate since he’d walked away from her and his silence said more than words ever could. She hadn’t killed him but she’d lost him all the same. A part of her was furious with him for abandoning her when she needed him most and she wondered what was wrong with her that the men in her life found it so easy to do so. 

Her father had been the first. He’d walked out on Shepard and her mother when she was just a child. Her mother had waited for him to return for years and, when she finally accepted that he wasn’t going to do so, she drank herself into oblivion. Then it had been Kaidan and, simultaneously, Garrus had pulled away from her as well. Thane had been the light in the darkness for her during that time, a friend when she needed one most. She’d known that he had abandoned his first wife and son and had foolishly believed that he would not do it to her. She knew differently now. At least this time he hadn’t abandoned Kolyat. The youth wouldn’t tell her where Thane was but he did at least let her know that he was alive and still healthy.

 **SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
 **RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
 **MESSAGE:** Thane, we just passed through the Widow relay and will be docking at the Citadel in two hours. Meet me at Docking Bay D-24. Grunt is hurt. It doesn’t look good.  
 **MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

 **SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
 **RECIPIENT:** KOLYAT KRIOS  
 **MESSAGE:** We just passed through the Widow relay and will be docking at the Citadel in two hours. If you’re in contact with your father, please ask him to meet me at Docking Bay D-24. His address is still showing up as unavailable. We’ll be on the station for eight hours and then we have to get back to Tuchanka.   
Shepard

 **SENDER:** KOLYAT KRIOS  
 **RECIPIENT:** CMDR SHEPARD  
 **MESSAGE:** I apologize, Commander. I haven’t seen my father in several days. If he returns, I will give him your message and ask him to contact you.

Shepard sighed and closed her omni-tool. “At least one of the Krios men is still talking to me,” she muttered as Garrus accompanied her to the airlock. 

He slung a companionable arm around her shoulder and said, “I’d never pegged Krios for a fool but he’s going out of his way to make himself look like one. Get a room, take a long bath, do whatever it is humans do to unwind and stop worrying about him. I’m sure he’s fine. He just needs time.”

“It’s been weeks, Garrus,” she said. “I don’t think he’s coming back. I don’t know if he’s still under hanar control or if he’s decided he’d rather be an assassin again than a soldier or if he’s just one of those guys who can’t handle commitment. He did the same thing to Irikah. I should have known he’d do it again. You and Joker are the only men who’ve ever stuck around.”

“Gluttons for punishment,” Joker said. “Thane’s an idiot, Commander. Who the hell walks away from the woman who saved the Citadel, destroyed the Collectors, and saved the rachni queen twice? Hell, actually, maybe he’s just scared. That’s a lot to handle.”

“Joker,” Garrus growled.

“I mean you’re amazing,” Joker said quickly. “That’s just a lot to live up to. Shit. I’m making this worse. I’m just going to shut up and try to get my foot out of my mouth without breaking a hip. You kids have fun.”

“I’m not intimidating, am I?” Shepard asked. “To men, I mean.”

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Ah, well, hmm. A little, maybe. A lot. Honestly, Shepard? You’re terrifying. But you’re worth it and any guy who can’t see that isn’t worth your time.”

“Thanks, big guy,” she said, slapping her palm against his armor. 

“Any time,” he said and cut through to the elevator that would take him down to the refugee camps. Vega called out for him to wait up and patted her shoulder as he jogged by. She stepped out onto the docks and scanned the area for him. He wouldn’t be waiting anywhere obvious but she didn’t see him in the shadows, either. With a heavy sigh, she walked to the end of the bay away from the crowds and leaned over the railing to look at her ship. She’d give him an hour. If he hadn’t shown up by then, she’d get to work.

Liara cast her a concerned look as she left the ship and Cortez came over and waited with her for a few minutes before moving on to the memorial wall. Traynor stopped by to let her know that, while she had new messages, there wasn’t anything urgent and nothing from Thane or Kolyat. EDI came over the comm as she and Joker left the ship and told her that she would continue to remotely monitor communications. Karin offered to ask after him at the hospital. She appreciated their support but hated the looks that all but EDI gave her. 

The hour passed and she reluctantly pushed away from the rail and scanned the bay a final time. Memories of her mother flashed before her eyes and she shook her head. She would not become like her. She wouldn’t waste her life and her time waiting for a man who wouldn’t return. Her father and Kaidan had taught her better than that. If she was devastated, she wouldn’t show it. If she was angry, she’d turn that anger onto the Reapers. She’d never expected to have Thane by her side until the end anyway. His decision to undergo the transplant had given her a brief hope and that hope had held her through the months apart when she had wanted nothing more than to be by his side but it had dimmed quickly in the cold reality of war and reunion.

Thane had been restless upon his return. He’d set himself back up in Life Support rather than her cabin and had spent the majority of his time there even though she’d made arrangements to have her room refitted to reduce the humidity in the cabin to a level more suitable for Tuchanka than a ship when they’d last docked at Illium before heading through the relay. He’d been more than willing to fight beside her again, or so he’d said, but he’d been present only for Menae and she’d had only that one opportunity to fight with her favorite team again. He had barely touched her and had made love to her only once in the dark of the Life Support room where he’d turned down even his display until the only illumination had come from the glow of the drive core. 

It was time that she faced facts. She was good enough for him when he thought he was dying but now that he had a long life expectancy given his new lungs and the current state of Kepral’s research among the hanar she no longer fit into his plans. Irikah had been a drell. He’d told her once that he’d never been with a human before her and had only been with an asari once and that for an assignment. He stuck to his own species and he’d been willing to make an exception for her but she’d been a fool to think that he’d wanted more. He loved his wife.

Shepard had been the one to initiate each stage of their relationship. She’d thought that he had reciprocated her feelings but, with the value of hindsight, she now realized that their promises had been based upon the premise that they wouldn’t return through the relay. He’d come to her and told her he hadn’t wanted to die and she’d been the one to bring up the dossier she’d found from the Shadow Broker that mentioned his candidacy for a transplant and to push him toward it. She’d had to use Kolyat to convince him and she recognized now that he’d chosen to live for his son. He appreciated her help in reuniting them, he admired her, likely cared for her even but she wasn’t his reason for fighting. She had been the one to propose and he’d accepted, thinking that he likely wouldn’t survive the surgery and not knowing how long she would be locked away. 

Hell, they both had known she wouldn’t be released until the Reapers arrived and they’d had a basic idea of the time frame but there was every chance that one or both of them wouldn’t make it through the initial invasion and she almost hadn’t. He’d seemed genuinely relieved to see her alive when she’d finally made it to the Citadel but there had been a distance there and she wondered now if she’d missed a slight disappointment as well. All of their promises to each other had been made during stolen moments while standing on the edge of death. Happily-ever-after had never been in the cards for them. She didn’t know if she’d survive the next mission, much less the war, but apparently he’d decided that her chances of doing so were too high.

Shepard ignored the tightness in her chest and willed it to go away as she strode purposefully toward the elevator. She told herself she wasn’t waiting for his voice to ring out or his hand to grasp her elbow. When she felt the press of disappointment as the elevator doors slid closed, she knew she’d been lying to herself. The final sentence that responded to her messages told her everything she needed to know. He was unavailable. “Time for me is short, Siha, but whatever I have is yours to take.” That was what he’d told her back before the relay. “My life, my body, my spirit are yours, Siha.” That was what he’d told her on their wedding day. 

She went by the hospital to check on Grunt and Kaidan. Dr. Chakwas assured her both were stable and looked like they would pull through but said that she’d seen no sign of Thane and hadn’t found him listed under any of his known aliases. Bailey sent her on an errand and told her that he’d had no reports on Thane’s whereabouts but was keeping an eye out. Udina praised her on getting the Primarch on board and was irritated over the asari’s refusal to attend their summit and the salarian dalatrass’ demands but, for once, his irritation didn’t seem to be directed at her. She was afraid she was actually starting to like Udina and wondered what he’d do next to make her hate him again. She gathered information on the state of Earth and all of it was bad.

The final thing she did before returning to the ship was stop by the office of an advocate Liara had recommended. She told him what she wanted and he agreed to have the paperwork ready by the time she returned to the Citadel. He assured her of his absolute discretion and she believed him—for now, at least—because he seemed as afraid of the fact that the Shadow Broker had referred him as he did in awe of her. She left his office with a heavy heart despite his assurances.


	3. Chapter 3

The crew that returned to the Citadel was not the same one that left it. There was an air of astonishment about them at what they’d accomplished but a heaviness laid over the joy like a sodden blanket. Shepard wondered if they would ever again experience the joy of a victory that didn’t come at such a heavy cost and whether she would have any family left by the time it was finished. They had won every battle thus far but were losing the war and the casualties hit close to home. Kaidan and Grunt, at least, had survived but Mordin was gone. 

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
 **RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
 **MESSAGE:** Thane, we will be docking at the Citadel in under an hour. Please meet me at Docking Bay D-24. We need to talk.   
Mordin is dead.  
 **MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

 **SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
 **RECIPIENT:** KOLYAT KRIOS  
 **MESSAGE:** We will be docking at the Citadel in under an hour. Same request as before. His address is still showing up as unavailable. We’ll be on the station for forty-eight hours this time.  
 **MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

Shepard closed her eyes with a sigh as Joker’s voice called out to her. Before she went up to the cockpit, she sent a final message.

 **SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
 **RECIPIENT:** JOSEPH KALIMA  
 **MESSAGE:** I will be arriving on the Citadel today. We will be in dock for two days. Please let me know when I can come by and pick up the paperwork we discussed on my last visit.  
 **MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

“What the hell?” she asked aloud. 

“Commander, you need to hear this,” Joker said. The tension in his voice brought her attention fully to the present and she listened as he informed her that he’d been attempting to contact Citadel Control for docking clearance but had not been able to reach her. He played a message from Commander Bailey that he’d found on the emergency channels. She took a deep breath and ordered him to bring them in as close to C-Sec HQ as he could and then called for EDI to tell Garrus and Liara to suit up.

They met her in the shuttle bay where they donned their armor and weapons, stocked up on medigel and thermal clips, and she ran through what she knew of the situation. Garrus advised her as to the best route of entry and she instructed him to take point. They were unprepared for what they found when they arrived but that was a common enough occurrence now that they didn’t hesitate. 

She was relieved to find Bailey and asked if he’d had any word from her stepson. He told her that Kolyat was with Grunt and that they were attempting to secure the hospital. Kaidan had gone after the Council. Shepard took a moment to hope that they were all right and wonder if Thane was on the station before shoving thoughts of her loved ones out of her mind. There was nothing she could do for them now. 

They found Valern and the dime-store, wannabe ninja. To say that she was unimpressed with Kai Leng would be an understatement. He had incredibly strong barriers and he was fast but she couldn’t help thinking that Thane would have put the whelp in his place in an instant, barriers or no. Unfortunately, Thane wasn’t here and nothing she tried was able to break through. Even her warp had little effect. She was diving toward Valern with the intention of throwing herself between the councilor and the blade when a cloak flickered out to reveal the limp body of Major Kirrahe. 

Shepard felt guilty that she could do no more than shout his name and call for Bailey to send help but she was determined to ensure that the Cerberus assassin would not reach the Council. Kaidan wouldn’t believe that Udina was dirty until it was too late. She had to get to him and make him see reason and, to do that, she had to get past the boy with the sword. She couldn’t stop to help even though Kirrahe was someone she admired and respected. She knew that he would understand and could hear his words echoing through the years. “Hold the line.”

When Kaidan shot Udina, Shepard was shocked. She hadn’t thought he had it in him and had been fully prepared to pull the trigger herself. She hoped that his trust in her meant that she could mark at least one person off of the lost list. Unfortunately, as she had suspected, she also had to add another name to it. Her only true consolation was that Grunt and Kolyat survived the attack and were able to secure the hospital with minimal casualties. Grunt looked a bit worse for wear but the doctors assure her that his recovery had been set back only slightly. 

She looked hopefully at Kolyat but he only shook his head. She could see the bitterness in his eyes and hoped it wasn’t reflected in her own. She asked if he would meet her later and went to the advocate’s office to retrieve the paperwork he’d prepared for her. She looked over it and gave her approval before uploading the documents to her omni-tool. With that task complete, she went in search of solace.

Kolyat found her at Purgatory. She wasn’t drunk yet but she was getting there. She managed a grin when she saw him and if it was a bit lopsided he was kind enough not to comment. He greeted her a bit stiffly but she ignored his reserve. She knew that he still viewed her as a bit of an interloper into his parents’ marriage even though his mother had been gone for over a decade and couldn’t blame him. She thought that he might even be right. 

She expected to see happiness on his face when she transferred the documents the advocate had prepared but instead his brows furrowed in a look that was so utterly Thane it broke her heart. “What is this, Commander?” he asked.

“Call me Shepard,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time. “It’s exactly what it looks like. Divorce paperwork for both the Alliance and the Illuminated Primacy. I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I know it’s awkward but I can’t find Thane to get it to him myself. It’s an even split. We both leave with what we brought into it. The advocate will file it. All he needs to do is sign it and return it to him. His information is in the paperwork.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

Shepard sighed and threw back the shot in front of her with a finger raised for the bartender to signal another round. She waited for it to arrive before throwing it back and answering tiredly, “You know why, Kolyat. I don’t want to be a…a millstone. It’s obvious that this was a mistake. I’m not your mother or mine. I can’t just wait for years for a man who doesn’t want…who isn’t coming back. I won’t hold him down anymore. I can’t keep him chained to me when it’s clear that he wants to be free. So tell him…tell him I’m sorry for pushing him. I hope we at least made enough good memories to counter the bad. I’m sorry. I should go.”

She rose unsteadily and was dismayed to realize that she was swaying. She blamed the alcohol rather than her own unsteady emotions. The club was suddenly too loud, the flashing lights too gaudy, the people pressed far too close. She wanted the quiet solace of her cabin on her ship, not the desperate farce of happiness of the club. She just wanted to be alone so she pushed herself away from the table and squared her shoulders before forcing one foot in front of the other. 

It wouldn’t do to have the soldiers taking their shore leave at the packed club or Vega, Joker, and EDI at the bar to see the galaxy’s last hope stumbling around like just another drunk. She had to keep up appearances even when her world was falling apart. There was no time for Shepard the woman to grieve her losses. Even on R&R, Commander Shepard had a role to play and a duty to uphold. In the privacy of her cabin, she could shed the mantle for a few hours, mourn as she needed, and then rise once more to lead the nations to peace. 

Gods, what she would do to just _stop_. She glanced around at the other patrons and felt the sharp blade of envy pierce her. She couldn’t remember what it was like to just be normal. She had never truly experienced it before. For a moment, she lost herself in the fantasy of what she imagined her life could be if there were no Reapers, if there was no war, if she was just Shepard and not the savior of the Citadel. 

She pictured waking in the morning beside the man she loved and cooking breakfast together before kissing each other goodbye and heading off to their boring, normal nine-to-five workday. She imagined lunch meetings and coming home to a hot meal and a routine evening where the biggest concern on her shoulders would be whether to watch the newest Blasto movie or the latest asari thriller. She could almost feel the arms of her lover holding her at night while she slept the peaceful sleep of one who’d never watched titans battle above her as one of her closest friends walked calmly into the arms of death or children scream and burn in the streets in which they’d played only minutes before as the ship that should have been fighting for them flew away.

The hand that cupped her elbow felt hauntingly familiar and yet at the same time completely foreign. The voice that met her ears was too young and unmodulated and it brought her from her fantasy. “Commander, why don’t I walk you back to your ship? You look…tired.”

“Thanks, Kolyat,” she said automatically, “but I’m fine. That asari over there looks like she wants to talk to you. You should go buy her a drink.”

She was impressed that his eyes didn’t even flicker and wondered if he didn’t like asari or if he didn’t like women. Perhaps he already had a girlfriend. He was a good young man, his actions when they met notwithstanding, and Bailey spoke highly of him and his work with C-Sec. Or maybe he had been imbued with the same streak of gentlemanly behavior that his father possessed and simply felt an obligation to his temporary stepmother. 

He looked troubled at her suggestion and said, “Not all of the Krios men are content to abandon people when they’re needed. Let me walk you back.”

“All right,” she conceded. It would be easier to just give in than to try to fight with him.

She groaned when she found Kaidan waiting for her at the airlock. This was not a conversation she was in a place to have. She was glad to have him back aboard and happy that he seemed to be opening up to her again but her faith in him had been irrevocably changed and right now he was just a reminder of her inner pain. She floundered through their conversation as well as she could and gave him what reassurance she was able that he’d done the right thing by firing on Udina. That was typical Kaidan. Garrus claimed that he didn’t know what to do with shades of gray. Kaidan couldn’t even see them. Some days it felt like that was all Shepard could see. She supposed they balanced each other out well.


	4. Chapter 4

Grissom Academy. Jack. Rannoch. Tali. Legion. The ruthless calculus of war. Every day the battles got harder as she proceeded to fight a war on two fronts and the casualty count rose. The Crucible was being constructed and construction was going well. She had her alliance between the turians, salarians, and krogan and another between the geth and quarians. She should be happy. She’d overcome divides that had lasted for centuries and was forming the most formidable force the galaxy had ever seen. Instead, she was just numb.

Garrus worried about her and he and Liara did their best to support her. Tali leaned. Vega took hesitant steps forward with her guidance. She kept Samara from killing herself and rescued Jacob and his new love from Cerberus. She helped Miranda as much as she was able and Kaidan slowly began to look at her as herself again. She dove beneath the sea and talked to Leviathan. She killed another Reaper on foot. She helped Aria reclaim Omega from Cerberus. There was still no word from Thane. She did her best not to pester Kolyat and limited her communications with him to replies to his messages and notifications when she went to the Citadel for repairs and resupplying. 

**SENDER:** CDR SHEPARD  
**RECIPIENT:** THANE KRIOS  
**MESSAGE:** Thane, we will be docking at the Citadel at 2100 tomorrow. Kolyat has papers for you. Please look over them and let me know if you have any questions.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**  
**MESSAGE:** Legion is dead.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**  
**MESSAGE:** Please just let one of us know you’re alive. I can let you go but I don’t think I can handle it if I have to lose you, too.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**  
**MESSAGE:** I think I’m broken, Thane.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**  
**MESSAGE:** Goodbye.  
**MESSAGE SEND FAILURE: ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE**

Shepard lay back against her bed and drew the leather jacket up to her face. She could smell the material but could no longer find any trace of the man who’d worn it. Grief was a constant pit in the center of her chest and she thought that she’d discovered a new empathy for Thane when he’d been suffering the effects of Kepral’s Syndrome. Every breath hurt. She was able to ignore it while on a mission when the adrenaline was flowing and the heat of battle was singing in her veins. It was the quiet hours like this one when she felt that it would overwhelm her. 

Ash was dead. Mordin was dead. Legion was dead. Miranda, Jack, Kasumi, Grunt, Jacob, Zaeed, and Samara had chosen their own paths to walk after the destruction of the Collector base. Thane was gone. She still had Liara, Tali, Kaidan, Garrus, EDI, Joker, and Karin. She’d gained Vega, Cortez, Javik, and Traynor and they had—aside from the Prothean—swiftly assimilated into the crew like they’d always been there. She was grateful to the ones who’d remained but it had begun to feel like the crew she’d so carefully assembled and worked so hard to earn their trust and loyalty had been hers only to borrow. The Collector mission had begun to take on the hazy feeling of a dream. It had been a sidebar to her primary goal of stopping the Reapers. 

Tali, Garrus, Joker, and Karin were the ones who’d been hers from the beginning. There were days when she wondered if she’d made a mistake in choosing Thane and if she wouldn’t have been wiser to pick Garrus. He’d stood by her through everything, after all. But every time she followed the thought to its conclusion it was the same. Their bond was forged in fire and blood, in heat sinks and gun oil, in the dance of battle. When the war ended, so, too would the threads that held them together. He would return to Palaven and find a nice turian girl. Maybe Shepard would get to be the godmother. He’d send her pictures and vids and they might meet up on the Citadel for drinks from time to time and reminisce, but the trips would get shorter and farther between until they might pass each other in the street, nod, and share a grin at the memories of the things they’d accomplished together in another life. 

Tali would likely be similar. Tali would return to Rannoch. She’d share the progress on her house, send pictures of the rock Shepard had given her in its place on a windowsill or a bookshelf, maybe even have a room just for her. Shepard would probably visit at times and Tali would stay at her apartment on the Citadel when she was there on business for the Fleet. Shepard would be called in to be whatever the quarian equivalent of a bridesmaid was or, perhaps, even the maid of honor. If their friendship remained strong enough, she might even be there when Tali’s child with Kal’Reegar or whatever quarian she chose was born. Then Tali would be busy with her husband and her children, her duties to her people, rebuilding her homeworld and they would slowly drift apart until visits became calls and calls became messages and messages became an occasional line or two on the anniversary of the end of the war. 

Liara, on the other hand, might stay around. Alliances forged and the end of galactic war did not mean the end of strife. There would always be a need for Spectres and Spectres would always have a need for information. Liara, like Tali, would likely keep a room for Shepard as she did for them and this one would probably be used fairly regularly. Their business relationship would keep their friendship strong and, perhaps, one day Liara might form a family that Shepard would actually be able to know. Maybe she’d get to be the honorary aunt of a pretty blue half-asari half-drell girl or, who knew, maybe Liara and Javik would work through their differences and she’d get to see the first Prothean child born in fifty thousand years. 

That was something to fight for, something to hold onto. The futures of her friends, even if they didn’t all include her, were precious things to be protected and cherished. The end of her own dreams for herself did not mean the end of her dreams for others. She wanted to see Garrus gazing down at himself in miniature, Tali standing in a window bathed by the light of her homeworld’s sun, Liara bearing the future of a nation once considered extinct. Those were good things, hopeful things, rays of light in the darkness that threatened them all. 

It didn’t matter where she’d be. The thought wasn’t fatalistic. It was merely fact. Spectres had an average life expectancy of a decade and that was in times of relative peace. Like Samara, her kind would be greatly diminished in the end and the likelihood of her survival was somewhere between slim and none. She accepted that the odds of her living to see the dreams of her friends come true were minimal but the important thing was that they would. She would lose no more of her family. And somewhere out there, she hoped, Thane would find peace. Shepard fell asleep with moisture on her face. 


	5. Chapter 5

If the attempted Cerberus coup had accomplished anything on the Citadel, it was to make the station’s residents aware of the war. Where once she’d heard talk of the latest vids and idle gossip, now the wards were full of people debating whether to leave their children in daycare or keep them home, civilians wishing to assist in the efforts, businessmen discussing the merits of aiding the troops versus profiting from the conflict, people deciding whether or not to open their homes to refugees. Shepard gave her input where she could and hoped that she was doing some good.

When Tevos told her of the artifact on Thessia, Shepard felt the faint stirring of hope for the first time in months. She was angry with the asari for keeping their secrets but silently prayed that this would be the answer for which they’d been searching. It took every bit of restraint she possessed not to order her crew back to the ship for immediate departure. There were still things to be done and her crew wanted to spend time with her. 

She went for a walk in the gardens with Liara, reminisced with Tali over how far they’d come since the first time they had arrived on the Citadel, had lunch with Kaidan and enjoyed his company without recriminations. She stood by Cortez as he bid a final goodbye to his husband and snuck up to the top of the Presidium with Garrus for a shooting contest which he won easily as he was a far better sniper than she. She bought a round of drinks for a group of marines with Vega and gave Joker and EDI what advice she could on their relationship though the thought of the papers she’d passed on to Kolyat burned in her mind and she thought that there were far better people to whom they could turn for advice.

When she returned to the ship, she was tired but refreshed and felt better than she had in a long time. She’d needed this time with them to reconnect without bullets flying at them. They were her family and they were her reason for fighting. She had needed the reminder that she wasn’t alone and that there were people in the galaxy who cared for Shepard the person rather than Commander Shepard the icon. It had been a blessed reprieve and the thought that she might have been given the key to ending the war once and for all added a spring to her step. 

She came to a sudden halt in her doorway as her heart lurched in her chest. Thane was sitting on the foot of the bed with his hands clasped in front of him and his head bowed. Her mind and heart raced with questions, consternation, relief, fear, joy, and pain. There were too many things she wanted to say and too many things she didn’t want to hear. She knew that he was aware of her arrival so, rather than speak, she rocked back on her heel into her command pose as she tried to compose herself inwardly and waited for him to speak. 

He sat silently for long enough that she had to fight the urge to fidget while he studied his hands. Finally, he said, “I am sorry, Shepard.”

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that, Thane,” she said with a coldness that surprised her. “I’m not quite sure which thing you’re apologizing for.” She bit her tongue before she could say more.

His brow ridges furrowed and he looked up at her with pain in his eyes. “I am sorry for everything,” he said and then hesitated. “I received the paperwork you gave to Kolyat. I have come to collect my possessions. I know that you have little space to begin with on a warship and do not wish to inconvenience you with the burden of storing my belongings.”

“It was your space, too,” she said softly. Her heart felt like it was shattering into glittering, razor-sharp shards that embedded themselves in her soul.

“I hurt you, Shepard,” he said and she winced at the use of her name rather than the one he had given her. “That is not an easy burden to bear. I never wished to cause you pain.”

“You broke my heart, Thane,” she said baldly. “I don’t care about my nose or the bruises. Those healed a long time ago. You weren’t in your right mind. By your own logic, you can’t be held responsible for your actions that day. You can, however, be held responsible for the ones that followed.”

His eyes darted up once more and he made a sorrowful sound deep in his chest. “Your heart, Shepard? I don’t understand. You wish to divorce me. You told Kolyat we were a mistake.”

“I’m setting you free, Thane,” she said wearily. “You don’t want to be here and I don’t want to force you. This was never—I knew that forever wasn’t on offer and I tried to take it with both hands anyway. I show more finesse on the battlefield than I do in relationships and I pushed you into something you didn’t want. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

He scoffed and gave her the derisive look that she remembered from the day they met. “Do you really think so little of me, Shepard? Do you truly believe that I would allow myself to be maneuvered into something I did not want out of, what? Duty? Obligation? Honor? Pity? Do you view me as a man with so little self-respect?”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose to fend off the headache that was beginning to build behind her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She’d simply wanted to know he was alive and to allow him to make a clean break that would hopefully have healed faster than this jagged tear they were creating.

“Then what do you mean, Shepard? Speak plainly because, from where I sit, it is you who have given up on me.”

Her eyes flashed and she bit out, “I gave up on you? I gave up? You quit, Thane! You walked out of that room and you ran just like you did with Irikah, just like you did with Kolyat! You did what you do best. No slammed doors or final confrontations, just the sight of your back walking away from the promises you made. What happened to remaining by my side to give me hope when all seemed lost, huh? You abandoned me in the middle of a war, Thane Krios! I’ve watched my friends—our friends—die and there was nothing I could do to save them! I saved the Rachni queen and cured the genophage and killed a Reaper with the mother of all thresher maws and cured the genophage and fought and lost to an assassin that you could have mopped the floor with and saved the Council again and ended the Morning War and entered the geth consensus and returned the quarians to their homeworld and took down a Reaper alone on foot! I talked to a creature older than the Reapers and discovered their origins and hosted a war summit and stopped a coup! I killed my own clone! 

“I’ve done all of those things and I’ve done them without you because you weren’t there, Thane! It shouldn’t have been Garrus and Tali whose shoulders I cried on when Mordin and Legion died. It should have been yours but you weren’t there. I chase a boy through a forest of the dead every night and watch myself burn with him and wake up alone because you aren’t here. I helped save your people, Thane, and you turned your back on me. Who does that? Someone who never loved you to begin with.”

She slid down the door to sit with her back against the cool metal as the last of her anger drained away and desolation took its place. “Just go, Thane. I don’t need you. You married me thinking that you were going to die and now you have your whole life to live and I have nothing to offer but death and despair. You should go and find happiness. You should just…you should go.”

She shifted slightly in order to let him pass but, rather than walk out the door, he knelt before her and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that the fire behind them was still anger and not the burn of unshed tears. Commander Shepard didn’t cry over a man, no matter how much that man meant to her or how little she meant to him. This was goodbye and she wasn’t willing to let him carry the memory of her weakness as his final one of her. When he thought of this moment, she was determined that he would see strength. He would see the woman who carried the weight of the galaxy on her shoulders and pressed on regardless of how badly she might stumble. He would not see a pitiful woman crying on the floor.

“Oh, Siha,” he breathed. “Is that what you truly believe? You truly think in your deepest of hearts that I do not love you with everything that I am?”

With his words, she lost the battle with herself and buried her face in her hands in a futile attempt to hide the sobs that wracked her body. Words would not come through the knot that burned in her throat and robbed her of the ability to even draw breath. If an elcor took a seat on her chest, she could not have felt more compressed than she did under the weight of her sorrow. His arms came around her and she stiffened as she rejected his pity.

“Siha, my Siha,” he murmured against her hair. “Forgive me. I have been a fool. I was so ashamed at the sight of you wounded by my hand. I could not bear to face you after what I had done to you. There is no excuse for what I did. Striking you alone would have been enough to destroy me but I attempted to kill you, Shepard. Had you been anything less than everything you are, I would have succeeded. It shames and terrifies me to think of how close you came to death by my hand. You are the first that I have targeted who has survived. That is not a thing for which I can ever ask forgiveness of you. I did not leave because I do not love you. I left because I do and yet I do not deserve you. I could not protect you even from myself.”

“It isn’t your job to protect me, Thane,” she choked out. “It’s your job to support me and let me support you. It’s your job to be here. Your body tried to kill me. Your spirit didn’t. You came back to me. I told you I loved you and you came back. And then you left. It wasn’t your body that walked away, Thane. It was you.”

“How can you ever trust me again?” he asked, torment clear in his voice. “How can I ever trust myself? My every breath is tainted with the flavor of my guilt and yet you wish for me to sleep beside you when you are vulnerable, to hold you while you cry? Even now, I could disconnect again and break your neck without being aware of the actions of my body. I am afraid to touch you, Siha. You deserve a man from whom you have no need to close your eyes and stiffen in fear at his touch.”

She pulled back and he released her quickly. Her eyes searched his and she said, “You think I’m afraid of you? I swear to all the gods, Thane, I will never understand you. I’m not afraid that you’re going to break my neck or strike me or otherwise injure me. I’m Commander fucking Shepard for crying out loud. You think I’d tolerate abuse and wouldn’t kill the first man who tried?” She shook her head in reproach and said, “What I’m afraid of is that you’re going to walk out that door once and for all and leave me empty inside.”

“If you do not wish for me to leave, then why did you tell Kolyat to give me papers of divorce for our governments and tell me goodbye?” he asked, seeming genuinely confused.

“I explained this already,” she said in a choked voice. “If you want to leave, I’m not going to stop you. I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for months. Your extranet address and all of your aliases have bounced my messages back as undeliverable. I’ve sent word every time I’ve come to the Citadel. Hell, Garrus and I searched every part of Zakera Ward we could get to before I ordered the ship to leave the first time. I sent you half a dozen messages telling you we had to leave. I even went so far as to order you back to the ship and, before that day, I haven’t given you a direct order since before we were married. I’m not Irikah. I’m not going to wait around hoping one day you’ll decide that you want your family again. I want you to stay but if you want to go, then I’m giving you a way out. I just can’t stand living in limbo like this. This isn’t a marriage. I don’t know what this is.”

“Siha, the day I took you as my wife was one of the truly greatest days of my life,” he said earnestly. The memory of you walking toward me looking as radiant as a sun was one that I carried with me through the months in which we were apart. I held onto the vision of your face tilted up to me in the light from the Presidium with the galaxy stretched like a velvet blanket of diamonds behind you as you said my name and vowed yourself to me when the pain of recovery was almost too much to bear. Yours is the first face to greet me when I wake and the last one I see when I fall asleep and it has been for almost as long as I have known you. You hold my heart and soul in the palms of your hands, my warrior-angel and yet I have been so careless with your own while you have guarded mine faithfully.”

“I love you, Thane Krios,” she said, lifting her hand to his cheek. “I think I loved you from the moment I saw you and I will love you until I’ve breathed my last breath. That will never change. I am yours whether you want me to be or not. The question here is whether or not you are mine.”

“Always,” he whispered. “In this life and the next I am yours, Siha and I will do everything in my power to make you believe that every day for the rest of our lives if you will allow it.”

“Does that mean I can destroy those damn papers?” she asked.

“Please,” he said forcefully. “I cannot lose you. These past months without you have been a hell of tu’fira and misery. I have been lost in you and yet convinced that I could never have you again.”

“You were brainwashed, Thane,” she said. “The hanar did something to you while you were in their care. Most likely, they planted the suggestion of a code word in your mind when you were in a vulnerable state that would trigger instant obedience and the diplomat utilized that when he realized he’d been caught. EDI believes that she has found a way to remove or override that suggestion and Liara has volunteered to help. So has Samara if you’re more comfortable with her.”

“If it can be undone then I could be with you without fear of losing myself again,” he said. “But, Shepard, I find it difficult to believe that the hanar would do such a thing. I have told you before, we are not their slaves. We cooperate with them of our own free will out of gratitude for their intervention. If you are correct in this…it changes everything. You would not lie to me. Of this I have no doubt. However, how can you be so certain?”

She stood on shaky legs and he led her to the couch where she took a seat beside him and threaded their fingers together. The fit had been awkward at first but was now second nature to them. She regarded their hands as she considered her words. This was shaky ground at best. He was fiercely defensive of the hanar and felt that her dislike for them came from a lack of understanding. Their differing viewpoints on this topic was one of the very few points of contention between them and one that was guaranteed to cause turmoil when it was discussed.

“Kasumi has a book,” she began, “on the history of the drell’s relationship with the hanar. She loaned it to me and I read it. I had EDI read it and run an analysis on it as well. She verified its authenticity and then cross-referenced with what little information there is out there. It was hard because most of your history is passed down through oral tradition and the hanar are so private. When what she found matched up with points mentioned in the book, I had her dig deeper. She hacked the Illuminated Primacy’s records and found that it was all true. She’ll share her findings with you if you want. I had her encrypt the data with the instructions that the information be revealed only if the hanar attempt to ally with the Reapers or further subjugate your people.

“They started with brainwashing the children that were given to them under the Compact. It wasn’t voluntary at first. It was a condition of the so-called rescue. They didn’t save your people. They harvested them and, because drell aren’t a Council race, no one from the outside looked beyond the surface. After the first generation of ‘rescued’ drell died off, the story changed. With brainwashing, they were able to convince the younger generations that what they did was by their own choice and that the hanar were selfless benefactors. They knew within a few years that the environment on Kahje was deadly for the drell and yet they did nothing until your numbers began to decline too sharply to recover without intervention. Only then did they begin to research a cure for the disease.

“Once control chips became available and the narrative about the salvation of the drell became a part of your history, brainwashing was no longer necessary. As each generation became more convinced that the hanar had saved them from a fate worse than death and that their service was an honor rather than slavery, even the control chips became superfluous.”

“You are certain of this?” Thane asked.

 

She nodded. “As certain as I can be. There are records of everything. They’re meticulous about record-keeping and they didn’t bother to hide what they’d done from their own people.”

“If this is true, then why did they feel the need to revert to antiquated methods with me?” he asked.

“You left,” she said simply.

“They released me upon my request,” he said. He wasn’t arguing. He was simply stating a fact.

“Yes, but even then they essentially told you that you’d be back, that hearth and home wasn’t what you were created for and that you could never be happy with Irikah. They knew that if they attempted to keep you they would lose you. If they allowed you to leave, then they thought that you would come back of your own accord when your marriage failed on its own. When you didn’t, they lost their best assassin. Rather than working for them, you were freelancing the skills they taught you to others and they weren’t reaping the benefit. 

“Getting you back, even temporarily, was something they were unwilling to let go. A control chip would have been too noticeable and too easily found and destroyed. The use of a code word is insidious. It can’t be weighed or measured by an outside source. It can only be tested and used and they are the only ones who knew the code. EDI shared it with me and it’s something you’d never hear in passing conversation even among the hanar. When the ambassador used it, you…activated. It disconnected you and you became their tool once more. The important thing, though, is that you broke free of it on your own. It wasn’t easy but you did it. They weren’t expecting that.” 

“Did I?” he asked. “Or was it simply the death of the hanar controlling me that freed me?”

“You’re the one with the perfect memory,” she pointed out. “What do you think?”

He thought for a moment and she could see his lips moving as he recalled the events of that day. The pain on his face as he recounted their fight cut through her anger and feelings of betrayal. He truly did feel incredibly guilty and, as he described thinking of her as nothing more than a target even as she tried to talk him down, she understood. It wasn’t just that he’d hurt her. He had looked at his own wife and seen a stranger marked for death rather than the woman he loved. She tried to imagine being on the other side of that and thought that she might have trouble facing him herself. 

The flicker of relief was swift but she caught it as he sighed and leaned back against the couch. “You said you loved me,” he said. “You believed they were your last words and you said them anyway. You woke me up.”

“I do love you, Thane,” she said firmly. “I never held you responsible even in the moment. There’s nothing there to forgive because I’d already done it.”

“I have been such a fool,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “I know your history and yet I played into it out of my own sense of guilt. I am so sorry, Siha. I love you. I love you with everything that I am and everything that I will ever be and I vow to you that if you allow me to stay I will never leave you again. I want to spend the rest of my life with you whether that is a day or a hundred years and when we are gone, I will find you across the sea once more.”

She pressed her lips to his as relief flooded through her. She’d been wrong. He did love her. They weren’t a mistake. She hadn’t pushed him into something he didn’t want. He was here and the war was almost over and her dreams just might have a chance to come true after all.


End file.
